countdown
by donutsandcoffee
Summary: Sometimes she is more grateful of Sanji, who asks her about her tangerines, her family, her maps. seven drabbles for Sanami Week 2017


**a/n** : drabbles for all seven prompts for sanami week 2017.

* * *

 **vii. unexpected**

Sanji is rubbing small circles at the small of her back, and this is all messed up—he should be the one crying his heart out, screaming off the top of his lungs—anything. After everything with his dad and brothers, after— _everything_.

But instead she's the one sobbing into his shoulder, because he's gone through so much and still forces a bloodied smile, a calming, "Nami-san, please don't cry."

She tightens her grip around his shoulders; pulling him close, grounding him. "You were so young," she chokes, lips pressed onto his neck, against his beating pulse.

Sanji smiles sadly, and touches her arm, jet black ink on raised skin of a scar. "So were you."

* * *

 **vi. confession**

"I can't dance," she tells him.

There are two half-empty glasses of wine on a nearby table, and the room sways slightly as she takes a step closer towards him. When he smiles, it's brighter than the dim lighting of the galley, and she tries to tell herself it's the wine too, but.

They can hear Brook's night lullaby from the deck, faint and delicate. The rest of the crew is already asleep.

"Everyone can dance," Sanji says, extending one hand towards her, palm up. The light dances in his eyes, and something else, too. Giddy, and light, and. "As long as they have a good teacher."

She takes his hand, calloused fingers against her ink-stained ones.

Her heart leaps in her chest and her world tilts just _so_. She tells herself it's the wine, but.

* * *

 **v. underwear**

When she enters the crow's nest, she is surprised to see Sanji there instead of Zoro.

She understands, in a detached kind of way, that Sanji must have trained regularly—there is no way any normal human can keep up with Zoro and Luffy through cooking meals three times a day alone—but she never actually _sees_ him train that it catches her off guard.

Sanji is facing away from the trap door, hands locked around a pull-up bar Franky built a couple of weeks ago. He is halfway through a routine, body a tight line of muscle, and he is not wearing any shirt. Nami is hit with a realization that she has rarely seen this much of Sanji's skin, and her eyes are immediately drawn to his legs, the broad curves of his calves narrowing down to his ankles.

She is so enraptured with the sight that she almost jumps when his feet hit the ground.

"I'm so sorry, Nami-san—" he says, instantly scrambling towards her and already halfway through an apology, "I can't believe I just ignored the presence of a beautiful maiden like you! I just had to finish my reps and I didn't think it would take so long—" he finally notices her silences and pauses. "Nami-san?"

Nami blinks. He has always looked so lean, wrapped under multiple layers of clothing and standing side by side with the collection of bulky muscles that is Zoro, but up close like this, she can see every curve of his muscles, coiled tight under the expanse his pale skin. She can also see a scar—a nasty, white crescent inches above his heart, where he took a stab of a knife in Thriller Bark, in place of her.

She has half the mind to raise her hand and touch it before he breaks her out of her reverie. "Nami-san?"

She jerks her hand away. "I was going to ask," she begins, but she can feel her face heat up, and can only hope that he won't notice. She doesn't even remember what she wanted to ask anymore. "Never mind," she sputters, "see you at dinner."

She flees the place before she makes any more dumb decisions.

* * *

 **iv. jealousy**

"Wait. Wait," she says, tone dripping with disbelief. "Let me hear you say that again, because I must have misheard. We've saved your pathetic excuse of a family, we're one step away from Sunny, Big Mom is currently distracted, and yet you want to…what was it again?"

Sanji gives her a weak smile. "I, uh, I wanted to save Pudding, Nami-san."

There's something red-hot, stuttering in her chest. It's not jealousy. She knows Sanji is so full of love, brimming with it until Nami isn't sure if he has anything else _but_ love, and he always gives so easily and readily that he has nothing left for himself. She knows this.

But sometimes she's scared that one day he's given a little too much, and he's finally been eked out, emptied, and no matter how much she tries to pour something back in it'll never be enough.

It's not jealousy. It's something so, so much more.

She opens her mouth to protest, but what comes out is, "well, that's just you, isn't it."

That startles a laugh out of Sanji.

When she looks at him, he has one of those private Sanji-smiles. Not the kind that's somewhat stupid—she has seen plenty of those, and they are certainly nowhere near _private_ —but the barely there thing, the kind that's soft, that makes him look like he's glowing inside his skin. The kind that he reserves just for her.

She doesn't know if this is the right decision or not, but Sanji is smiling and that's okay. Everything is okay.

* * *

 **iii. can you hear me?**

"Sometimes," Robin explains patiently, "affection can even be shown subtly. Through names, for example."

"YOU'RE ALL IDIOTS," Nami yells from across the deck, hands balled into a fist. Usopp, Luffy, and Sanji cower before her wrath. "USOPP, LUFFY, SANJI- _KUN_!"

Sanji rubs the top of his head as it starts to swell up from her hit. "Nami- _san_."

Zoro crosses his arms at Robin, oblivious. He tilts his head. "I don't get it."

Robin smiles. Across the deck, Nami continues her rant on the three boys, her body leaning unconsciously towards Sanji. "You're not the only one," she says, and leaves it at that.

* * *

 **ii. mother**

Bellemere used to tell her, _find a boy who would bleed for you._

Nami takes Sanji's bandaged hand into hers, watches the rising and falling of his chest; faint, but there. Patches of blood seep through parts of the cloth, a spattering of red on too-pale skin, and she feels something scrape along the underside of her ribcage. Crackled, rough.

 _I found him_ , she thinks.

She wishes Bellemere had told her the other part; the part where she would bleed along with him, inside.

* * *

 **i. the little things**

The Strawhats don't care about who she was or what she has done, which is something she is grateful for—she has done many terrible things in the past, none of which she is proud of.

But sometimes she is more grateful of Sanji, who asks her about her tangerines, her family, her maps. They talk at dawn before the sun lights up the sky, and as her tea mists in the cool air and Merry wakes up at their feet, he reminds her that she was always more than blood and solitude and lies.


End file.
